DX11: BattleForge

BattleForge is free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) developed by EA Phenomic with DirectX-11 graphics capability. Combining strategic cooperative battles, the community of MMO games, and trading card gameplay, BattleForge players are free to put their creatures, spells and buildings into combination's they see fit. These units are represented in the form of digital cards from which you build your own unique army. With minimal resources and a custom tech tree to manage, the gameplay is unbelievably accessible and action-packed.

Benchmark Reviews uses the built-in graphics benchmark to measure performance in BattleForge, using Very High quality settings (detail) and 8x anti-aliasing with auto multi-threading enabled. BattleForge is one of the first titles to take advantage of DirectX-11 in Windows 7, and offers a very robust color range throughout the busy battleground landscape. The charted results illustrate how performance measures-up between video cards when Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) is enabled.

Test Summary: With BattleForge graphics settings turned to their highest quality and SSAO enabled, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 truly shines as it easily surpasses the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 and matches up to a pair of AMD Radeon HD 6870's in CrossFireX. The irony here is that BattleForge isn't even part of NVIDIA's The Way It's Meant To Be Played initiative; it's actually an AMD co-developed game. Nevertheless, all 512 CUDA cores dance past the others to offer one of the more respectable cost to performance ratios.

I can always tell when a visitor comments without reading the article, because if you had then you'd know that it will do this with every application because it's controlled at the hardware level. Since there's circuitry limiting power consumption, how do you suggest we 'turn this off'?

I'm asking you, the empowered visitor, since you obviouly know the 'right' way to do this after telling me that our way was wrong.

The "throttling" of the card is based on input from thermal sensors and current sensors. It is not software-specific. It doesn't matter how you stress the card; if it gets too hot, or draws too much current it will take corrective action.

Anand's numbers also seem to be more in line with other reviews I've looked at. So unfortunately it looks like you need to retest power consumption with another program, why not ask Anand what program they used?

Otherwise, from what I read, good review. Not planning on upgrading so I didn't read the whole article unfortunately. Been a reader for some time now, first comment so thanks for the great articles so far. BTW I have a suggestion/request for the graphics card articles: Add minimum frame rate numbers to the tests, as these are as important as average frame rates, if not more so.

NVIDIA also explained that this is just a work in progress with more changes to come. From my own testing I can confirm that the limiter only engaged in Furmark and OCCT and not in other games I tested.

At this time the limiter is only engaged when the driver detects Furmark / OCCT, it is not enabled during normal gaming. NVIDIA also explained that this is just a work in progress with more changes to come. From my own testing I can confirm that the limiter only engaged in Furmark and OCCT and not in other games I tested.

Real-time clock monitoring does not show the changed clocks, so besides the loss in performance it could be difficult to detect that state without additional testing equipment or software support.

This was the first GTX-580 review to hit my in-box today. I like the fact that this card uses such a small amount of power and still achieves very nice performance. While it's true that the top-end Radeon cards bested it in some of the tests, they don't offer the same compatibilities with CUDA and Phys-X processing and that shows up glaringly in some of your results. Not knowing for sure how game development will go as to what technologies each company will embrace, it makes more sense to me to buy the NVIDIA card.

Well, it matches fairly well to a 5970, which is a dual gpu card. Honestly, it shows some good results in my opinion, although it may not beat crossfired 6870's, it can match/beat a 5970 for a similiar price.

The only thing i find a quite deceiving is the choice of the competing cards.For the sake of performance, it is obvious that a single 470 wouldn t do it. It would have been tem time more interesting to know how would perform a SLI with more popular 460 gtx 1g HAWK or FTW or even a 470 SLI since you put a 6870 Crossfire on the stake, and that such are in pair with the mentioned cards.That would be relevant to know how this newby 580 perform agaisnt his own kind.

So you did this review, and I'm not sure how long it takes to do one of these, but I really appreciate having them to look at. But I wonder if you ever just relax with some of these Wazoo cards in a PC and just game a little. Time is probably a factor.

Not even 2 460 ?Ususally those review are to make an opinion of what to buy according to what you use, and guide the pretenders to an upgrade.Well it doesn t take rocket science to guess the 580 is to topple ATI best dog, this is the obvious part, everybody will do it. But what of the average joe ? Since GTX 460 is the average card on the market and not the 470, what should he do, acquire a 580, or double his 460 ? That s the second more important question on the market, now.If i take that the 6870 is equal to a hawk and less than a FTW,according to your own reviews, average joe could guess that 2 of those would let the 580 on the floor panting as did the double 6870. But as other factors kick average joe can t be sure then the revue fails him, and the average joe drive the market bulk, and want the not so obvious answers.If the review is to give an "en passant" review of the 580 its excellent, but its too obvious, everysingle review will do it.

You reviews usually fill my doubts and i hardly consult others sites as they tend to say all the same that you do, so your very thrustable. . SLI or buying a new card ? no answer for NVIDIA owners.I hope you ll have 2 NVIDIA card when your start reviewing the non vanilla 580. I can assure you its all that matters for much people.You solved the ATI side and its great for them but we Nvidia side are left hanging.

I have 2 1GB GTX 460's and unless I really wanted the brute power of 2 580's, I'm sticking to the 460's as they're probably on par with 1 580. I'll probably wait till the 680's or 7900's till I upgrade next.

I purchased a second overclocked 1GB EVGA GeForce GTX 460 FTW video card specifically for SLI testing, and have updated all of the charts with the new results. I may write a separate article discussing value and performance, but there are no plans to re-write this article at the moment.

I think this a great GPU I just think the price is perhaps a little high at the moment. Plus, you may want to see what the 6970 and 6950 yield from AMD. If nothing else, I bet it forces the price lower on the GTX 580. Olin, I liked the article and appreciate all the time I'm sure it took to get all this info.

I just want to say thanks a million for all the effort and time you put into this benchmark review Olin Coles. It is detailed, precise and exactly what I was looking for and I am sure many more will find it helpful as well. Much appreciated.

Why couldn't they have just called it the GeForce 485 or 490?! Looking at these performance numbers, it would of been more appropriate. When I see a 480 and 580, I expect the 580 to be at-least 60% faster than that their last model...

Are they really going to have to start their next gen chip in the 600's?

Because the underlying chip has actually changed. Admittedly, the changes were minor: fine-tuning the types of transistors used in various parts of the chip, moving fan control onboard, et cetera so on and such forth. Still, a case could be made for a "4xx" designation. But although NVIDIA has a track record of confusing model numbers, they're still way better than AMD, whose 6xxx series cards are slower than the existing 5xxx series.

Olin, having trouble posting questions in the forums; thought you'd like to know.

So here you go, both on and off topic. Nice review, thanks for all your efforts.

With the preponderance of video hardware turning to 3D enabled products I'd like to know how I can un-chart the costs of 3D enabling via hardware if that's possible (I have no depth perception, just ask the US Navy). So I get no bang for the buck with this evolution that others are likely fascinated by. Any general rule of thumb that you may have already gotten your mind around?

I'm inclined to think that Benchmarkreviews received a GTX580 with a lower vid core than some of the other reviewers, which explains the meager overclock but sipping power. But anyhow, it just represents the other end of the spectrum where some cards have lower vid. It may not be a good thing though, because Nvidia does not think the gpu can stand higher voltage.

How can I compare two Radeon HD 6870's to one GeForce GTX 580? Well, two 6870's cost less and provide better FPS performance. That's how. People want to know how much performance they can get for their money, not just how one card stacks up against another single card.

A more substantial upgrade than I though it would be. Thanks for taking the many hours it takes to make an objective review. It seems that a pair of 6870s represents a better deal for the buyer today that this card. I don't think that much has changed ... yet. Nvidia still has the fastest in absolute per GPU performance while ATI is better for price:performance ratios. Of course, we'll have to see the high-end ATI cards before making a final judgment.

Great review, and just wanted to let you know that you are missing the cost analysis for the 460's in SLI, and just want to point out that there are much better 460 cards at a cheaper price like the MSI Cyclone 1GB, or the Hawk which are only $199 and $215 respectively, right now.

A pair of these in SLI would be $400 - $430, and would perform better than the EVGA cards. ##newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127534&cm_re=gtx_460_1gb-_-14-127-534-_-Product

But they are NOT absolute maximum values, nor is the power consumption. You state that loaded system power with the 580 is 191W and 315W with the 480. But you also say that you tested temperatures and power consumption with Furmark, which throttles the card, this can be checked if you run the benchmark test where you will get a LOT lower performance compared to the 480 for example. ALL other reviews out there state the 580 gets you 15-25% better performance than the 480 for the same or SLIGHTLY less power.

But not 124 watts less. And the difference isn't just down to a lower VID like ivor said. Test again with another program, Vantage, Crysis or, like Nordichardware did, try with Kombustor and using the "Post-FX" setting.

Please update the article as soon as possible as it is hugely misleading right now.

i didnt read the whole article but i read the fps testings and to me it seems that geforce 460 sli rocked all the other cards or am i mistaking ? i am about to buy my self a new card and my choise is between the 580 and 460 sli it seems that the 460sli is the best perfomance and is cheaper but my question is if it is possible that the 580 will perform way better after a newer driver perhaps ? plx help me make up my mind i reaally would like the newest card but why buy it when and older in sli beforms way better. thanx for the great articles

Hopefully you read enough of the article to realize that the GTX 460's we used had the highest factory overclock available: EVGA FTW Edition. Two stock GTX 460's in SLI do not beat a GTX 580, and instead compete with the 480.

Thanks for doing these tests in 1680x1050 AND showing your settings; most of the reviews I've seen elsewhere only show 1920x1200 and leave out the valuable setup info (so I could not attempt to reproduce it here.)

Back when I was a avid hardware review reader (a little over four years ago), it would always frustrate me to find very little detail on the settings and specifications for each video card tested. I always had to guess at the speeds of a particular product, and if it was an overclocked version (XFX 7900 GT doesn't say a lot). So when I started Benchmark Reviews, I made it a point to ensure our details made it possible to reproduce our results.

I have a single eVGA GTX 460 SC (OC'd to the FTW speeds) and halved your SLI numbers to give me a ball-park figure. With 3 days left on my Step-up option to the 580, your results make it really tempting...if eVGA ever catches up on the huge back order! :)

Thank you for the review and all your effort, it seems many people tend to post complaints, but those who are satisfied generally never bother to post a thanks.

Will you comment on the noise level? This seems to be a greater concern to me more and more as I seek to spend more time and money seeking out quieter components. The only reason I didn't purchase a GTX480 was due to the noise, so I have been having to do with a GTX460. The majority of reviews point out that the GTX580 is much quieter which seems to be a positive move on nVidia's part.

The noise level is nearly silent at idle (as in no audible sound), and under full gaming load it becomes slightly more audible. If I turn the fan up to full power using Afterburner, it's loud enough to hear but still more quiet than a GTX 460. That's right, less noise than a GTX 460. The fan noise on a GTX 580 doesn't even compare to a GTX 480, which seemed to get better later into production.

This car fits my needs perfectly because not everything takes advantage of SLI, nearly 90% of the programs I use that are graphic card intensive do not support SLI configs. SO I will be upgrading my two 295's to a 580 this very day ;). Thanks for the review.

A 580 = a package ( it is a stable solution for every game there is )sli/crossfire/cf = raw power + cheaper but a more unstable way of dealing with older games even new top titles like aliens of predator.

While videocard do the same, the different versions of it are ment for different people.

Even if the gtx580 cost more and doesn't provide on every little aspect on the best way, the card = still a far better choise for most peoplethen any sli/crossfire/cf unstable solution.

2x 460's or 2x other budget cards or x2 solutions are great if the card actually produces 200% faster speeds then the 1 cored version. Which it clearly isn't doing. Its even below the 580 or with a minor fps above it. ( on only "newer games")

After the GeForce GTX 580 launch, I felt a little irritated to see only one model sell for $500 while all of the others sold for $520 or more. This throws off my Cost Analysis math on the very first day. Making matters worse AMD's Radeon HD 5970 could be found in a few places for $500 before launch, but now costs no less than $550 or (much) more.

This game of sinking prices just ahead of launch is getting old, and it ruins my cost analysis every time. So visitors, keep this in mind when you read these reviews, and understand how prices change on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis.